Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Revere Beach. A childhood memory.

True it was near the end of it's life but Revere Beach, was a wonderful place to go and have fun. In the late 50's and 60's every once and a while my parents or my aunt and uncle would take us to Revere Beach. The city of Revere is about five or six miles from here. I don't know this for a fact but I wouldn't be surprised if it was named after Paul Revere but I never researched it. By the 60's Revere Beach was in decline but it still was a fun place to go. It was the Coney Island of New England. There were ballrooms, hotels, a ton of food stands, all kinds of games and of course the amusements including one of the largest roller coasters in the world. After my friends and I got our drivers licenses in the late 60's it was often a destination to kill time, have fun, maybe take a date. It was near the end of it's life at the time. The roller coaster was pretty rickety looking by the late 60's, early 70's as it opened in 1896.

The dodgem cars, the wild mouse, the Himalaya were all pretty wild rides. It all came to an end in 1978 with the blizzard of '78. We got 27.1 inches of snow with hurricane winds in two days and that was the end of all the amusements. Sad but as George Harrison said "All things must pass." The beach, of course, is still there and it's nice to have an ocean beach so close but I do miss all the fun that we had there. This was Americas first public beach. Below is a clip from a PBS program from the 90's called Boston the way it was. Below that is slideshow that I made from pictures I found on Google. They are in no particular order. There are pictures and post cards from the early 1900's up till the 1970's. I think on the fun I had there, it was a blast!





I'm outta here.

6 comments:

  1. I watched your video before reading this and now I know why you made it. We had a place in the 50's called Bertram's Island where all of the rides you mentioned were plus a wooden rollercoaster. I can't believe they tore it all down in 1986. It was a wonderful place to meet new friends! wink wink.....................the rollercoaster was really great! https://youtu.be/c8A7mYAS3so

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  2. I will look at the video in a second I share this sort of memory as it reminds me of Willow Grove where us kids went every chance we had. Oh it was so exciting to go..be there and ride! There was one called the Bullet that scared the hair off my head but I made myself get on it anyway. The roller coaster was great too. But n the bullet, it turned and upended and you found yourself headed facing straight down! Ewwwwww. By the way, I thought I was the only one with machine guns mounted on the hood??? I also have a traffic light and it's always a green light facing me..red for anyone else!!

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  3. Paul, Thank you for the videos. I would have loved every bit of that beach ...if I had been given a chance. LOL. I loved roller coasters and such. I can only imagine smelling the foods. Too bad some things had to change. I think our slower no tech lives were pretty darn good. Blessings, xoxo, Susie

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  4. I had a comment all typed out on my iPhone and then when I tried to post it...it actually wanted my password. I don;t know what it is. It's written somewhere but Safari keeps them all in the cloud. So I had to skulk away without leaving the comment I had made. What it was I have no idea except this reminds me of my fave place, Willow Grove. I loved the roller coaster and the "Bullet" that thing that has two cars, one on each end, and goes round and round, takes you upside down and scares the hair off your head!

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  5. Great video and wonderful thoughts. I hope you are well, been a while. Warm greetings!

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